PRIVILEGE

White House Won’t Release More Than 100,000 Pages of Kavanaugh's Records

Democrats ask, “What are they trying so desperately to hide?”

The White House told the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday that they will withhold more than 100,000 pages of records relating to Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s time in the George W. Bush administration, according the Washington Post. The letter announcing the decision reportedly claims 101,921 pages would be protected under presidential privilege. “Judge Kavanaugh, an associate and senior associate White House counsel, dealt with some of the most sensitive communications of any White House official,” the former president’s records representative wrote, arguing that the withheld pages “reflect deliberations and candid advice concerning the selection and nomination of judicial candidates, the confidentiality of which is critical to any president’s ability to carry out this core constitutional executive function.” Many Senate Democrats disagreed, however: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the decision the “Friday night document massacre,” the Post noted, and claimed collusion to keep Kavanaugh’s past hidden and expedite the confirmation process. “Republicans in the Senate and the president of the United States are colluding to keep Judge Kavanaugh’s records secret and trying to hide their actions from the American people by doing it on the Friday night of a holiday weekend,” Schumer said. “What are they trying so desperately to hide?”